new year, old crap

Every day, I read the Chicago Tribune online, and the other day I found this column with a fill-in-the-blank self-survery about how your 2005 was, and it's really good, and I highly recommend doing it, but now I am depressed. I think there should be resolution-related depression hotlines that become available this time of year.

Because, you see, I am GREAT at self-reflection. I am a champ at thinking of excellent, thoughtful resolutions. It's just - well - all downhill from there. So doing the survey was a good exercise until I realized I just have no motivation or follow-through, so my positive answers were not as easy to come up with as my negative ones.

My resolutions from last year were long, there are 13 of them, and they were written obliquely. I think I was trying to use positive language:
2004
1) Crunches and productive morning time (translation: a friend suggested we just do 100 crunches a day every day. Also to make better use of my morning time before work at home because I usually just laid in bed til the last possible minute then rushed to work.)
2) De-clutter work, bedroom and computer
3) Enjoy and share good feelings and thoughts (translation: don't be so negative, and speak up if you're happy)
4) Be open, available, yet selective (Jesus. Translation: get off your ass and find a boyfriend but don't fall for the assholes again out of desperation)
5) Early prep vs. late stress. (Translation: don't procrastinate)
6) Home is haven (Translation: clean it regularly)
7) Family time (Translation: make and enjoy time with the family)
8) Work "hygeine" (I heard this term for your daily routines and habits at work - calling people back, keeping clear records, cleaning and filing - taking time to do this stuff well, so you feel and seem on top of things.)
9) Conscientious and intentional (Holy crap. That one was about living better and not letting life happen to me in order of demands, as I usually do.)
10) Teeth (Translation: brush, floss, and generally take care of my chompers. I must have had a lot of dental work done in 2004.)
11) Out of debt, conscious spending (Translation: pay shit off, live on a budget, and don't buy things you don't need)
12) Health to heart (Be healthy and do it because you want to)
13) Don't be scared! (Translation: Look for a job and a boyfriend already! Take risks!)

So, although those were excellent and complicated but important things to resolve to do with my life in 2005, this year I think I'll just have one, single resolution: To get rid of my crap. That's right, just: GET. RID. OF. MY. CRAP. I need to also make a renewed effort at my job, and find a new job, and - shit! I really need to find a man, and lose about 40 pounds. but actually the only important one that I can actually do all by myself and which will improve my life by leaps and bounds is get rid of my shit.

If you're wondering, I did do some of those from last year, though - I did get better at work and I really tightened the purse strings and started paying debt down. But then Christmas came and I rang it up again. Oh well; I know I can live on nearly nothing now, so I will keep pluggin' away at that one. Also I went to the dentist 2 weeks ago and had no cavities or gum problems. Woohoo! Yea for me. Still no man though, and still pretty scared of all that. We'll see.

My other job

I work at a copy shop - only about 3 times a year for about a month at a time - and only in their busy season, which revolves around Northwestern University's academic calendar. My job there (for which I am fairly well paid and not taxed; shh!) is to make what is known by college students the world over as "Course Packs" or "Readers" - those black-plastic-spiral-bound, color-cardstock-covered books of badly copied pages from textbooks that cost about as much as any book but are way less user-friendly. What I do at the copy shop is to make the reader "masters" - I clean up what the professors bring in, sometimes copying pages from books themselves (imagine a box filled with 15 books and scrawly post-it notes), and then I number the pages, count, set up tables of contents, check for missing articles, wrong-facing pages, or whatever is needed to get it ready for production. It's actually not terrible work. There are some annoying things about the job, like the fact that I never really know when they'll call me in to work, because it's not always busy until the last minute, and the fact that the woman who is in charge of the readers during the day is really unorganized and also fairly unpleasant to deal with, so there are always miscommunications, rude notes and lost things, etc. The owners, who hired me, are great, and I just try to deal with them. Plus, the communication is easier - see, the rest of the people who work there are Romanian. I don't really know how it happened, but there are about 8 people who work there regularly and 4 of them are from Romania. There is Diana, mentioned above, who is in her 20s and is not very pleasant and who does yoga, Vic, the newly named manager of the place, who's been there longest, works at night and pretty much hates everyone and will talk your ear off about it, there's Vic's wife Krina who is really great and funny as hell but barely speaks English, and Rosie, the friendly nighttime guy who wears too much cologne and used to work in a granite-cutting plant before this.

The mistakes that happen at a printing shop where English is not the first language are sorta funny, but there are far less than you might think. Mainly I just get asked, "Sarah, what is 'lilac'?" or have to correct mistyped things like "The South After Deconstruction," etc., when I am there.

I work from 8 or 9pm until about 1am, sometimes later. I bring my dog with me 50% of the time, and I think she hates it but it makes me feel less guilty about leaving her all day AND all night. Plus I think it's good for her to be around more than just me.

The funniest person at the place has to be Vic. He is this big balding guy, early 30s, wearing soccer sandals and swilling diet coke after diet coke. He wears the same entire outfit day after day until it gets visibly, smellably dirty. Before his wife came to the US (a few years ago), he would save up all of his dirty laundry and take it BACK TO ROMANIA when he goes, once a year, so his MOTHER could do it for him. He works from about 1 to 9pm, and has a hand in firing at least 25 people in the last couple of years. He just really can't stand people without a work ethic. It's kind of refreshing, actually, but I do feel that he could turn on anyone, including me, at anytime. To hear him go off on people is a great time-passer though, especially since I don't really work with the daytime people at all so don't know or care if he is telling the truth about them. He's also SUPER-racist, and sexist (he thinks all women should be hot and that his looks do not matter because he is a man), and anti-semetic, and conservative, and oh my god, do not get him started on "the fucking gypsies," because everything bad in his country -- in the world! -- is their fault. Also, his real name is Catalin, which to me sounds like a girl's name in any language. Must be why he goes by Vic. Krina's real name is Augustina, and Rosie's real name is Rezvan.

Rosie is the one I work with most often now because of my hours. He feeds my dog people food, which I am totally against, but no matter how many times I ask, yell, and beg him not to, a few days will pass and I'll notice she's got tomato sauce on her nose or something. Last time it was chinese food. Jesus! Also, Rosie is lonely and often talks about finding a girlfriend, which is a little uncomfortable. I wish I could tell him he wears too much cologne and seems too desperate, but that would be like someone telling me I am fat and have zits, wouldn't it? See, although I would probably just say "So?" I still can't do it.

I really need the money, so I keep this crazy job. Sometimes it makes me literally sick from the lack of sleep. I usually get home about 2 and go to sleep about 3 and then have to be up by 8 to get to work the next day. One year I got pneumonia after the winter rush - that was bad. This year I am trying to contain it by only working 3 days a week, which annoys Diana. I've been trying to figure out how long I've been working there and I think it's been 3 years. When I started, I thought I'd just do it for that one round, until I got a raise at my day job or got a new job, which I thought was around the corner. Ha!

The way to Iowa...

All right, I have to say first that it takes me forEVER to pack and leave the house for a trip. I feel that I am a spontaneous kind of person, but maybe I'm not, because I can never just "throw a few things into a bag" and be off on some adventure. I suppose I *could,* like if there was a fire or the nazis were at my door, but lately it takes a full day of planning, sorting, cleaning and packing to get myself out of town.

(Having the dog only makes things worse, too - not only does she have her own whole suitcase [food, food dishes, toys, dog bed. doggie coat, treats, chewy/boney-er treats, and grooming tools], but she is fascinated by - and must attempt to destroy - each thing I try to pack, clean or sort while getting ready to go.)

So, that said, this time it took me two days off work (well one, really - the other was for shopping and wrapping and doing Xmas cards) to get ready to go to my parents' place in Iowa, a four-hour roadtrip away. I slept in a little too late, 10am, then walked and fed the dog, took a shower, and was ready to go into work for a bit when I realized how much I had yet to do. I wrapped the remaining gifts. I checked email a few times, and opened and put away gifts from my Dad that arrived via UPS. all of a sudden it was 3:30pm, and I had wanted to leave around 5. Crap. I rode my bike to the drugstore and got my prescription, put my bike in my storage garage a few blocks away, and walked home under a darkening sky. It was 5pm when I walked in the door. I took Lois out again, then put the new windsheild fluid in, and started loading the car. By 7 I was starving, so I ordered Thai food to pick up on the way to Borders, which I had to go to sto return a book I'd bought the night before, and buy something for my nephew. There are no Borders in Burlington, Iowa; just a bad, mall B. Dalton that has 200 varieties of those tiny, stupid "gift books" like The Zodiac of Cats or something, but nothing I'd want to read or make anyone else read. Anyway, so at 8 we are pulling up to the dog park, because 1) Lois had been relatively good all day and didn't unwrap any of the gifts or pee on the floor and 2) we were about to go on a 4-hour car ride and she'd only had 2 walks that day. So she played with two puppies whose "dad" was really cute/nice until we got too cold (it was 10 degrees). Then we had to stop at my parents condo and get some laundry, and Lois had to eat doggie dinner. Then I remembered too late that I had to go make a bank deposit and couldn't find a chase bank anywhere, so decided to just let the account go below zero because the temperature was, and I was just trying to get the hell out of Chicago!

So we started driving with a little less than a half-tank of gas. I took a way I don't usually take and it was going OK, with only a few of the usual imagined jellyfish attacking my side windows or ghosts of cut-down trees threatening to fly in and take over the highway - that is, until about 10:30pm when I hit a literal WALL of fog. Something (I heard on the radio) about the extra cold, sub-zero temperatures hitting a warm front coming in the next day. Whatever; it was SO scary. I couldn't see the fronts of trucks I was next to, just their back lights. I could not see anything but about 6 bars of dotted center lines at a time. It made it oddly quiet, too, whcih added to the fear factor.

I drove this way off and on for about 1-1/2 hours, missed a turn twice because I could not see any sign, and finally got into the clear and drove for a bit. I stopped at a rest area at about 12:00 and Lois wouldn't pee it was so cold, and there was a stench of manure in the air so she was totally distracted. I got a Coke and a small hot chocolate. Then, 53 miles later, there was another rest area, and we stopped because *I* had to pee, but Lois still wouldn't until I screamed at her to pee NOW! I looked up right after that and saw a creepy trucker laughing at me screaming in the cold at my poor little dog with the coat on.

So it's like 1:30, right? Well by now we are on a stretch of 1-80 where there is, literally, nothing. And my gas light goes on. And I drive anddrive anddrive and there is NO GAS station, anywhere. I finally saw one of those "gas this exit" signs with the brands on them and there were two so I figured I'd go to the first one I saw. Well, I saw the Mobil station and was closed. Same with the Shell. I was starting to freak out, realizing that each failed attempt at finding gas off the highway was eating more gas! Anyway, all ended well when I finally found a gas station and it was lovely; had a very nice lady and a very clean bathroom, and even a cute guy getting coffee with me, and I bought my corn nuts and coffee and started back on the road. I had filled up my 12-gallon tank with 11.78 gallons of gas - it was the closest to running out of gas I have ever been!

As I got closer and closer to Iowa, my Mom kept calling me, and asking where I was, and claiming to be going to bed, then calling me again, without even a hello, just "Where are you NOW?" always at a time when I was not even in a town or near any markers or signs.

So I was maybe 40 minutes from Burlington, and in a town, and I saw an open gas station on the far corner across an intersection to my right. It was a big Phillips and at the green light I slowed after crossing the intersection to turn right into the station's driveway, but there wasn't an entrance on that side. It was strange but I just figured it was fate and I didn't need anymore coffee anyway. Then the flashing lights, and the dog barking her head off, and the cop, who asked if I had a problem back there and why my "registration lights" (whatever those are - ha ha - no, I asked him, and they are the little lights above the license plate) were out, and took my license and checked it for 20 minutes while Lois barked and acted insane. I was about to cry or laugh my ass off. It was 2:50am.

I finally pulled into my parents' driveway at 3:30-something. My mom was naturally still up, though she had to work the next day, with the basement CD boombox blaring, and the dog ran out to greet us.

Interrupting Cow

I took my friends Peter (38), Jimmy (8) and Tommy (4?) to the Sing-Along Mary Poppins screening at the Music Box Theatre last weekend. I was babysitting anyway, and it was the last night of the run for MP and I REALLY wanted to go, so I took the boys. Peter and I had gone a few years ago to the Sing-Along Sound of Music, in costume (and we even won a prize - some stuffed goat - for our 16-going-on-17 joint costume) so I knew he had to come along for this one, too. And it was great that he was there, because the boys were hilarious and somewhat a handful and I was glad to have someone else with me to crack up at the whole thing.

So the whole "sing-along" thing is that the organizers give out these bags with stuff in them and clue you in ahead of time to the things you can participate in during the film, a la Rocky Horror. Then they subtitle all the songs in the film and you sing along. It's really, really dorky and super fun.
In our bags, we each got:
1) a little paper drink umbrella that you hold up every time Mary Poppins flies with her umbrella, OR, you pop the umbrella up like it's broken and fly it up when the other nannies are whisked away by the wind
2) two gold chocolate coins that you can eat when the old bank guy steals the tuppence from Michael Banks, or when he gets it back and causes a run on the bank
3) a pixie stick of flavored sugar that you can eat whenever anyone talks or sings about a spoonful of sugar
4) a party popper that you pop at one of the 4 times the cannon goes off on the top of the Banks' ship-house
5) a card that says either supercalifragilistic or expialidocious on one side and umdiddaliddaliddaliddaumdiddali on the other
6) a smal kazoo you can play with the animated penguin band during the jolly holiday part or during any band-playing part
...I think that's all.

The photo above is from the start of the show, when, after the guy explained our little bags and other things to shout out at the screen ("BORING!" whenever Mr. Banks came on, "Spit-Spot" whenever Mary says it. etc.), he asked for someone to come up to the stage to tell a clean joke that would get us all laughing for the scene with Uncle Alfred. I remembered that Jimmy had been going NONSTOP a couple of nights before with a knock-knock joke so I told him to go up and tell it and he did! And he told it perfectly! So the pic is from after he told the joke and that's him, in the dark, on the left, heading over to claim his prize candy. Here is Jimmy's joke: Knock knock/Whos there?/Interrupting cow/Interrup--/MOO! (it's totally funny).

The whole night was a blast. Jimmy was into yelling "BORING BANKER!" instead of just "boring!" when Mr. Banks came on, and then Tommy would yell "you stink Get out of here!" way afterward. I was totally embarrassed but also cracking up. Plus, the boys ate popcorn, pixie-stick sugar, chocolate coins (theirs and mine and Peter's), Goobers, root beer, and prize candy that Jimmy grabbed from the joke thing, and they were so tired from the long-ass movie that they both fell asleep in the car on the ride home and I carried them both in and put them to bed in their clothes without brushing their teeth at all. I am the worst babysitter.

Fright Night - First Friday

I hosted an open mic night Friday night - not only the open mic, but a whole "First Friday" evening at my work. It was interesting, and fun - kept me on my toes, etc. - and I got paid a bit extra for it. The night started with me introducing a bunch of classes (the Dead, Reggae, Beatles and Wilco ensembles, to name a few...) which would then perform two songs, and then after they were all done, I introduced the featured performer of the evening. It was great. THEN came the open mic portion of the evening...7 people were chosen in a drawing to perform, and at 10:40, when it was time for them to start, the concert hall cleared completely (which was understandable given the late time and winding down of the rest of the evening's events - the square dance, craft b'zar, string jam, etc.). But the empty place must have been a bummer for the open mic-ers.

So, as I stepped onto the stage and looked out at 400 or so empty seats and the 12 other people in the room (yes, 12 - here is the math: 7 performers, 1 sound guy, 2 friends of one performer, 1 teacher who works at the school and was just watching for a couple songs, and 1 woman who was at a back table the whole night), I went into it thinking that I'd just make the best of it; find something good about each of these performances. They each had 8 minutes, and I was ready to be impressed with the whole place and be happy that these folks all had a chance to perform on the vaunted stage and get it over with.

WELL. The first two performers were Ok, actually one of them was great. Then it started going downhill in this crazy, slo-mo nightmare. The performers would each get up there, and they would play their songs and sing their lyrics and I swear to god, each one of them showed themselves to be seriously psychotic or sociopathic in some way, and that became more and more apparent as each minute ticked by. There was the guy who couldn't play guitar at all and CLEARLY made up the words to his repetitive "blues" songs as he went along, though he said he wrote the songs the week before, there was the sneaker-clad folkie guy (middle aged yuppie by day) who didn't realize that the 60s were over and no one wants a boring but well-structured folk song anymore, there was the good-looking but absolutely vapid guy who sang to hear himself sing, but his lyrics were like, "oh you passed away today I can't say goodbye to you, oh no no not today you say" and so on, in no way making sense, and then there was the guy who got all flustered when I called him up there - actually not bad just needed to practice more - but he freaked, jumped up and pulled out an OLD tape recorder, a mic and cord, attached it all up and asked me to un-pause it so he could record his performance, then when he got onto the stage he said "I wish I would have known I was next" and launched into an America song, badly, and it scared me. The other guy had a highish, good voice, but a psycho demeanor as he sang about America raping countries and wailed fast on his guitar and grinned and giggled from behind his giant bushy beard. Yikes.

I don't know if I like music anymore.

what to do next

I still never finished my goddamned undergrad degrees, you know that? So I am thinking, maybe because I am just being stupid, but what if I just moved back to Iowa City and got a semidecent-but-not-necessarily-perfect job, and a similar apartment, and just - finished?

It would only be for a short time, then I could come back to Chicago. Or move somewhere else. Or whatever. I don't know. How long would I have to work for the University if I wanted to take cheaper classes that way? I still have to figure out all the info on what I actually need to graduate. I have spent a little time on the University web site today instead of working from home as I was sposed to be doing.

The thing is, I just want to finish, suddenly. I want all the explaining, and self-loathing and excuses about it behind me. But the thing is I also am still paying like 20K in school loans, so I can't just not work and only go back to school. Plus other expenses - like I'd have to store all my stuff and pay car insurance and crap...and I'd have to have roommates, even in IC. Ugh.

I don't know, is that a crazy idea? I just want out. I feel stuck without the degrees. Maybe by April or May I can just move away. Maybe I could do it in just one summer...